RGA42T Review

The Ibanez RGA42T is the RGA42 but with a tremolo. It's fairly quiet, has low feedback & has a rich and bright tone. I recommend this guitar if your looking for a starter guitar. You will NOT find a better guitar for this price.

Sound: It suits my style of music amazingly. Running this guitar with Amplitube 3 or Guitar Rig 5 really brings out its true colors. Its fairly quiet, has low feedback & has a rich and bright tone. Harmonics are really strong which in my opinion really makes a metal song stand out. // 10

Action, Fit & Finish: The guitar came well made, the only thing letting this guitar down would have to be the edge 3 tremolo. It has terrible tuning stability. (I've tried adjusting this.) Apart from that the guitar came all set up properly, I adjusted the pickups height to my liking. The paint job on this guitar came perfect. Another con to this guitar would have to be the frets. They do not come perfectly polished. // 9

Reliability & Durability: Playing live I would definitely use this guitar. It has a strong paint job which would withstand a fingering. The strap buttons that come with the guitar are okay, I personally replaced mine with locking strap buttons, was the best safety option for gigs. // 10

Overall Impression: Overall this guitar is amazing for my musical style. I've been playing this guitar for 1 year now and it has been one of the best buys for guitars. I recommend this guitar if your looking for a starter guitar. You will NOT find a better guitar for this price. If this guitar did get stolen I would defiantly buy a new one. When looking at guitars I also came across an Ibanez MTM-2 (Mick Thompson) Version. I love everything about this guitar, the only thing I changed was the edge 3 tremolo with an OFR (Original Floyd Rose) Bridge. // 9

Sound: This guitar suits my style of music completely. Its pickups deliver a really great bright sound which with some effects from Amplitube 3 or Guitar Rig 5 really makes it sound amazing. I run this guitar through a Marshall JCM800 Lead series amplifier 4x12' stack. The music style I play is mainly metal so playing songs from bands like; Bullet For My Valentine or Parkway Drive, this guitar really suits it. // 10

Action, Fit & Finish: The guitar came perfectly constructed. There are no errors with the finish of the guitar & I adjusted the pickups to my preference height. The Ultra thin neck is great for shredding out solos and easy for moving your hand up and down the neck as fast as possible. The tuning pegs were loose when I bout this guitar. I also suggest buying an allen key to tighten, loosen them so you can change the tuning of your guitar. The Edge 3 is a bit of pain but after some adjusting its fairly good. // 9

Reliability & Durability: I would use this guitar for gigs, it has a strong build and could withstand a hard night out. The strap buttons were very tight which is always good if you want your guitar to not fall off the strap. I would depend on this guitar greatly, it is amazing to me and at the end of the day, this all comes down to personal preference. The paint job is great and it should last for a long period of time. // 9

Overall Impression: Overall this guitar is great for the style of music in which I play. I recommend this guitar if your looking for an intermediate guitar. In my personal opinion you will not find a better guitar for this price. If this guitar did get stolen I would buy a new one as it is a great match for me. When looking at guitars I also came across an Ibanez MTM-2 (Mick Thompson) Version as well as the review above. I love this guitar, I would change the Edge 3 with something better like an Original Edge, Edge Pro or even an OFR (Original Floyd Rose). // 10

Tuning-stability is incredibly important in a starter guitar. If you cannot produce a decent sound, it'll prove very difficult to keep enthusiasm for practice. For 700$, I think there will be far better (starter)guitars.

I wouldn't consider this guitar as a "starter guitar." GIO, cheap Squier or Epiphone or those Chinese Strat copy starter packs are starter guitars. This is more like a "medium range" guitar. You can use it to practice with a band and play live, even to record in a studio. And I wouldn't call any guitar with a Floyd Rose a starter guitar. FR bridge just isn't good for starters because it's harder to set up and tune than a fixed bridge. So if you play songs in different tunings, FR is not the best thing. So yeah, I agree. For $700 there are much better starter guitars.

Not many people are gonna drop 600+ on a STARTER guitar. Good review though, and I think that "you will not find a better guitar for the price" is entirely subjective. Everyone is going to find what they consider to be the best guitar for them.

pretty good review but as previously mentioned 600 is a bit much for a starter guitar. Also I would probably class any guitar with a floating tremolo as an intermediate.
The only issues with the review i find are that the sound portion you state you plugged into amplitube 3 which makes the signal from there on out purely digital and not truley representative of the guitars sound. You also say you replaced the bridge yet gave the features and impression a 9/10, surely this "flaw" would result in a lower score no?
But as I said it was a pretty decent review, have fun with ibanez's gloriously fast necks

True but guitars in Australia cost much more than in the USA so that's why when we talk about guitars US $450 is pretty much the same as AU $600. But Australians have to pay much more than Americans for their guitars.
It's the same as in Europe guitars cost more than in the USA. So in guitar prices $ = .

i made a decision a few yrs back when i tried using a floating bridge style (the floyd rose above for example) that i would never ever use a floating bridge again if i did not have a hired guitar tech to do it for me...it sucks and is painful, especially when u mess with ur setup a lot.

You'll never get better at it if you just run from it. It took me more than 2 years to finally be able to fix my Ibanez Floyd rose bridge. So instead of not buying it ever again, just experiment on it, with some help from others you will be good at it soon...